Abdominal pain medical therapy

Resident Survival Guide

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Abdominal pain Microchapters
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Causes Diffuse Abdominal Pain Left Upper Quadrant Left Flank Left Lower Quadrant Epigastric Quadrant Umbilical Region Pelvic Region Right Upper Quadrant Right Flank Right Lower Quadrant Intraperitoneal Extraperitoneal
Differentiating Abdominal pain from other Diseases
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Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1]

Medical Therapy

If there is mild abdominal pain, the following tips might be helpful:

• Sip water or other clear fluids.
• Avoid solid food for the first few hours.
• If there is vomiting wait for 6 hours, and then eat small amounts of mild foods such as rice, applesauce, or crackers. Dairy products should be avoided.
• If the pain is high up in the abdomen and occurs after meals, antacids may help, especially if there is heartburn or indigestion. Avoid citrus, high-fat foods, fried or greasy foods, tomato products, caffeine, alcohol, and carbonated beverages.
• Avoid aspirin, ibuprofen or other anti-inflammatory medications, and narcotic pain medications.

Chronic Functional Abdominal Pain

Non-pharmaceutical approaches to treating CFAP also overlap with treatments for irritable bowel syndrome. This includes enteric coated peppermint oil capsules, which act as anti-spasmodics to relax the gut and also have pain-killing properties due to the methyl salicylate that naturally occurs in peppermint. Gut-directed hypnotherapy or self-hypnosis can also mitigate the hyperreactive nervous system of CFAP, and help alleviate abdominal pain.

Contraindicated medications

Abdominal pain in the absence of diarrhea is considered an absolute contraindication to the use of the following medications:

• Loperamide